MW MUST SHOW IT’S DESERVING OF ACCOLADES

Charles Barkley told the country Sunday that the Mountain West was the best conference in college hoops. Of course, Barkley also predicted that the Utah Jazz would win the NBA title a few years back and once threw a man through a plate-glass window, but let’s not focus on the past.

With the Selection Committee granting five of the nine Mountain West teams bids to the NCAA Tournament — the most ever for the conference — it signified a level of respect that the league’s coaches, administrators and fans have long been pleading for. But sometimes a blessing engenders a burden, and for Mountain West squads the burden is this — they have to prove they deserve it.

It may not be fair that a weekend or two in March can serve as the sole criteria for judging a college basketball season, but it is the reality. A conference championship or 30-win season can be instantly invalidated by a loss to Lehigh — just like the Mountain West’s top-ranked RPI could be dismissed should its representatives all fall by Sunday’s end.

This isn’t the ACC, SEC or Big Ten — where national championships have been stockpiled and national prominence established. Uh uh. This is the conference that has yet to even reach the Elite Eight.

“To take our next step as a conference, to maintain the credibility that we now have, we need to win,” said San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, whose team is joined by UNLV, New Mexico, Colorado State and Boise State as Mountain West schools in the NCAA Tournament. “We need somebody or somebodies to win multiple games.”

Well, if past tournaments serve as an indicator, then there’s little reason to be hopeful.

Last year, the four Mountain West teams went a combined 1-4 in the Big Dance, with none faring better than expected, and with two being upset in the first round. The year before, the three Mountain West schools went 4-3, although BYU — which has since left the conference — produced two of those wins, while the second-seeded Aztecs fell to third-seeded UConn.

The number of current Mountain West schools to have made the Sweet 16 this millennium? Three: Nevada in 2004, UNLV in 2007 and SDSU in 2011. The last time a current Mountain West school reached the Elite Eight? That would be 1991, when UNLV did it while representing the Big West.

It’s not that the Mountain West’s growth hasn’t been admirable. It’s a fledgling conference established in 1999 that has three fewer teams than the ACC yet managed to send one more to the tourney this year.

But showing up to the party is one thing. Becoming the life of it is something altogether different.

Lately, the Mountain West has been like a movie up for a bunch of sound-editing and costume-design awards. Sure, it can claim five Oscar nods or whatever, but there isn’t a soul talking about the acceptance speeches the next day.

This, however, is the chance to seize college basketball’s red carpet, to join the A-listers on Page 1. Nobody cares about “the best conference top to bottom” when the top is only a few stories off the ground — just like no one remembers a “solid” album devoid of a hit.